★★★★☆Roald Dahl’s audacious vulpine trickster hits the 21st century in this musical adaptation — and he’s all the more fantastic for it. Written by Sam Holcroft with songs by Arthur Darvill, it’s a colourful, occasionally chaotic adventure in the modern countryside, where intensive farming practices and Ukip attitudes cast a chilly shadow.

With all the beguiling cheek of their preening hero, Holcroft and Darvill have taken liberties with Dahl’s simple story, but the author’s sense of fun, and delight in the disgusting and macabre, are very much intact. Maria Aberg’s production is sure to grow slicker and steadier on its paws, and the cast, led by Greg Barnett’s swaggering Mr Fox, make a nimble, bright-eyed bunch of deliciously eccentric critters.